Republicans in a bind
The GOP’s weak hand on entitlements
By Joshua Green, Boston Globe
December 12, 2012
One reason why the fiscal cliff negotiations haven’t gotten very far, at least in public, is that Republicans are hung up on the matter of exactly what they’re trying to achieve. It’s not that they don’t know the answer — they want deep cuts to entitlement spending — but rather they don’t want to advertise it, since cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is unpopular and therefore politically costly. But it’s hard to move forward if you’re not willing to state your demands, and so things have bogged down since President Obama opened the negotiations by asking for $1.6 trillion in tax increases and deduction caps.
For Republicans, entitlement cuts are a long-sought-after prize, but one that’s difficult to openly acknowledge. Over the years, Democrats have reliably pursued a strategy known as “Mediscare” — frightening seniors by dramatizing how such cuts would affect them. Last year, for instance, television ads attacking supporters of the Republican House budget famously showed a congressman shoving a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff.
Those ads work. So when Republicans want to talk about cutting entitlements they tend to speak in code, declaring that we need to “get our spending under control” or “shrink government” rather than specify what programs would be cut or shrunk. In fact, they’re so frightened of a backlash that during the presidential campaign Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan attacked Obama from the left on Medicare, decrying the $716 billion in cuts enshrined in the health care law and vowing to restore them, despite the fact that Ryan’s own budget, passed by the House, would have imposed precisely the same cuts.
On the fiscal cliff, that’s put Republicans in a bind. They don’t have much leverage because without Democrats’ consent they cannot stop the tax increase on the top 2 percent of earners set to kick in at year’s end. Most Republicans realize, furthermore, that driving the country over the cliff and forcing everyone’s taxes to go up because Democrats won’t extend cuts for the rich — “holding the middle class hostage,” in Obama’s phrase — would be political suicide.
(More here.)
By Joshua Green, Boston Globe
December 12, 2012
One reason why the fiscal cliff negotiations haven’t gotten very far, at least in public, is that Republicans are hung up on the matter of exactly what they’re trying to achieve. It’s not that they don’t know the answer — they want deep cuts to entitlement spending — but rather they don’t want to advertise it, since cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is unpopular and therefore politically costly. But it’s hard to move forward if you’re not willing to state your demands, and so things have bogged down since President Obama opened the negotiations by asking for $1.6 trillion in tax increases and deduction caps.
For Republicans, entitlement cuts are a long-sought-after prize, but one that’s difficult to openly acknowledge. Over the years, Democrats have reliably pursued a strategy known as “Mediscare” — frightening seniors by dramatizing how such cuts would affect them. Last year, for instance, television ads attacking supporters of the Republican House budget famously showed a congressman shoving a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff.
Those ads work. So when Republicans want to talk about cutting entitlements they tend to speak in code, declaring that we need to “get our spending under control” or “shrink government” rather than specify what programs would be cut or shrunk. In fact, they’re so frightened of a backlash that during the presidential campaign Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan attacked Obama from the left on Medicare, decrying the $716 billion in cuts enshrined in the health care law and vowing to restore them, despite the fact that Ryan’s own budget, passed by the House, would have imposed precisely the same cuts.
On the fiscal cliff, that’s put Republicans in a bind. They don’t have much leverage because without Democrats’ consent they cannot stop the tax increase on the top 2 percent of earners set to kick in at year’s end. Most Republicans realize, furthermore, that driving the country over the cliff and forcing everyone’s taxes to go up because Democrats won’t extend cuts for the rich — “holding the middle class hostage,” in Obama’s phrase — would be political suicide.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home